Using citizen science data to support conservation in environmental regulatory contexts

Abstract

Outside of protected areas, environmental regulation is a vital policy tool for conserving at-risk species. An underappreciated potential for citizen science is to augment locality databases used in regulatory review to provide greater certainty to regulatory decisions. To characterize current use of citizen science data in regulatory review, we surveyed 61 state and provincial natural heritage programs, agencies that perform field surveys and maintain databases of at-risk species in the United States and Canada. Most (82% of U.S. and 88% of Canadian) natural heritage programs participate in regulatory review, and of these 52% of the U.S. and all Canadian programs currently use citizen science data. eBird and iNaturalist are the most commonly used schemes. In a test case with the New York Natural Heritage Program's database, the inclusion of eBird records for 6 at-risk species increased the currency and the number and spatial extent of areas known to be utilized by these species. Although citizen science data did not change subnational conservation status categories, they demonstratively complemented information collected by professional field biologists. Challenges to using citizen science data in this context include extracting useful information on rare species when most records are of common species and filtering records with sufficient spatial precision and documentation. To enhance the utility of their data, designers of citizen science schemes should encourage their volunteers to provide useful ancillary data, such as breeding activity for birds, and making data, including for sensitive species, easy to access by program data managers.

Introduction

Citizen science has the power to advance scientific literacy, basic research, and environmental conservation (Bonney et al., 2009, Silvertown, 2009, McKinley et al., 2017). Data collected via citizen science schemes (“partnerships between those involved with science and the public in which authentic data are collected, shared, and analyzed,” Jordan et al., 2012) can expand understanding of species distribution, phenology, migration, and other natural history traits (Dickinson et al., 2010). Citizen science data can also inform conservation efforts by providing insights into population sizes and trends of species of potential conservation concern (Sullivan et al., 2017, Horns et al., 2018).

One conservation application of citizen science data that has received limited attention is their use in government review of compliance with environmental regulations (Sullivan et al., 2017). Although protected areas are critical for conserving species and habitats, they cover small portions of Earth's terrestrial and marine areas (UNEP-CMC et al., 2018). Outside of protected areas, environmental regulations are a key tool for protecting at-risk species and habitats (Evans et al., 2016). Examples of national-level legal frameworks are the National Environmental Policy Act in the United States and the Environmental Assessment Act in Canada. Subnational political units typically have additional regulatory requirements. Government agencies regularly use information on the distribution of at-risk species to inform decisions about permit and license applications, development review (such as infrastructure siting), resource extraction activities including drilling and mining, or the use of pesticides, that could impact natural communities and at-risk species (Percival et al., 2018). Such applications are typically reviewed, in part, with respect to the documented locations of populations of species designated by the government as at-risk, threatened, or endangered. As a result of this review, authorities may reject or require modifications of proposed activities deemed to have negative effects on populations of these species. Location information on at-risk species managed by government agencies can also proactively identify areas where development should be avoided or identify at-risk species that should be surveyed in areas proposed for development.

Time, staffing, and funding constraints typically limit the number of sites that government field biologists can survey. Policies that encourage the use of citizen science data in this context can lead to greater confidence in regulatory rulings if observations of at-risk species are made broadly and regularly across a jurisdiction and can fill spatial and temporal gaps between surveys. However, the potentially large economic consequences of regulatory decisions casts greater scrutiny on the information used to justify them. For example, the presence of congregations of young striped bass (Morone saxatilis) in the Hudson River adjacent to New York City contributed to the denial of permits for a proposed riverside transportation and development project worth billions of dollars (Buzbee, 2014). Thus any citizen science data contributing to regulatory decisions must have legally defensible identifications of species documented as well as spatial accuracy commensurate with the spatial scale of regulatory requirements (typically the land parcel scale, equivalent to tens of meters).

In the U.S. and Canada, natural heritage programs maintain databases of the locations of populations of species deemed “at-risk” by their governments (Groves et al., 1995; Stein et al., 2000). Natural heritage programs are located in 49 U.S. states, one U.S. tribal region (the Navajo Nation), and 11 Canadian Provinces (where they are known as conservation data centres). Using a standardized methodology, natural heritage program biologists as well as those from other state and federal agencies and academic institutions continually update the information to reflect their field work (Groves et al., 1995; Stein et al., 2000; Bittman, 2001). These databases are typically consulted in regulatory review processes to determine the effects that proposed activities might have on at-risk species and their habitat.

These U.S. and Canadian natural heritage programs are prime candidates for incorporating citizen science records into their databases to improve currency and expand geographic coverage. In addition, when a new species is added to a state or provincial list of at-risk species, such as after the revision of a state wildlife action plan (federally mandated plans, updated every 10 years, that prescribe actions to conserve nongame wildlife in the U.S.), citizen science data could be used to rapidly populate program databases with information about the species. However, doubts about the reliability of citizen science records, the investment required to extract useful data, and other concerns may preempt the adoption of citizen science data by natural heritage programs (Burgess et al., 2017).

Here we describe the results of consultations with natural heritage program data managers and zoologists to determine the extent to which they are currently using citizen science data in regulatory review activities. We document the opportunities presented by citizen science schemes and challenges to both working with the data and defending its use in regulatory review. To exemplify the potential benefit of using citizen science records (from eBird, www.ebird.org) to augment a natural heritage program database, we calculate, for one U.S. state, (1) the additional localities identified for 6 at-risk birds, (2) the changes in the spatial extent of areas designated as used by these species, and (3) changes to the known distribution of the species that could influence whether the species can be categorized as “at-risk”. We conclude by recommending measures that citizen science programs should adopt to ensure the data they recruit are suitable for use in regulatory contexts.

Natural heritage programs assess the conservation status of species in their state or province, and the results influence the selection of species designated as at-risk. Citizen science records can influence several factors used in the calculation of conservation status: range extent, area of occupancy, and number of “element occurrences”, polygons or buffered points that depict areas that, if conserved, can contribute to the survival or persistence of an at-risk species (Master et al., 2012). By potentially expanding the spatial extent of records of where a species is known to occur, citizen science data have the potential to cause species to be assessed as less at risk than if the citizen science data were not considered. Conversely, high levels of citizen science observational activity without recording a species in areas where it was historically reported can alert authorities that the species' range and/or abundance is declining and that the species may qualify for a higher threat category than currently assigned.

Natural heritage programs maintain locality information of at-risk species used in regulatory review in up to three formats, each of which could be augmented with citizen science data: observation points, modeled distributions of suitable habitat (generated from observation points), and element occurrences. Element occurrences typically include information on the relative health of the population and the date of the most recent observation. The programs themselves may participate directly in regulatory review or provide their data to other state, provincial, and federal agencies to help inform regulatory decisions.

eBird, an international database of bird sightings developed and maintained by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, facilitates the documentation of bird observations worldwide by encouraging observers to enter lists of species observed at either standard “hot spots” or user-defined locations (Wood et al., 2011; Sullivan et al., 2014). eBird provides extensive guidance on protocols for volunteers to enter their observations via either a web portal or mobile phone application. Observers record numbers of each species observed, the location, length, and duration of the route covered, evidence of breeding, and comments about the route and/or how they identified rare or confusing species. Observers are also able to upload images, sound recordings, and video to document records (Gilfedder et al., 2018). eBird was initiated in 2002, and the ammassed eBird data are beginning to be used in research and conservation contexts (Sullivan et al., 2017). With broad geographic coverage, large numbers of record being added, and an established process for vetting records through expert regional reviewers, eBird data could contribute to databases used in regulatory review, especially in the United States and Canada where the program was first established and records are numerous and continually submitted.